A Girl of the Multitude. By the Author of "Letters
of Her Mother to Elizabeth." (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s.)—This is another tale of revolution. There is a touch, in fact more than a touch, of cynicism about it, or is it rather a note of an unconquerable optimism ? "Here is a gutter child, without the most rudimentary sense of faith and morals, and she is an example of courage and unselfishness." Does this mean, "See, how futile are the great disciplines which are to regenerate the world," or, "How admir- able a thing is human nature when it can produce so fair a flower out of the very lowest and coarsest slime" ? Of the story itself, the most striking part is the picture of the condemned aristocrats waiting in the Conciergerie for the tumbril that is to carry them off to the guillotine. It is not the first time, by any means, that the picture has been painted; but as we see it here it has a certain vigorous freshness. Perhaps the best-drawn figure is the young Due d'Amboise, the young noble who has ceased to be frivolous without learning to be serious, for adversity does not always teach. But what can be meant when it is said that he had "a priggish dislike" for a fellow-prisoner? To have "a priggish
• dislike" a man must be a prig, and he was anything but that.
Previous page
